This COBRE program seeks to bring together individuals with existing expertise in oxidants, redox balance and stress signaling at the Medical University of South Carolina. Our long-term plan is to develop in South Carolina a Center of Excellence in this scientific discipline or with this scientific focus. To this end we have constructed an infrastructure that will provide a mentoring environment for five target faculty members with research interests in calpains and diabetes signaling pathways, oxidative pathways in mitochondria, reactive oxygen (ROS) and nitrogen (RNS) species and peroxiredoxins in cancer initiation, ROS/RNS and the unfolded protein response and oxidative pathways of neuronal cell death. Their projects provide interdisciplinary opportunities and are supported by three scientific cores in Proteomics, Metabolomics and Cell and Molecular Imaging. The central hypothesis is that redox regulated pathways impact significantly on the pathobiology of diseases such as cancer, aging, diabetes, inflammation and neurodegeneration. The administrative core will facilitate a plethora of functions including, business management, faculty development, mentoring and program planning and sustainability. We have appointed oversight committees to include Steering, Internal Advisors and External Advisors. The latter two groups contain individuals who have broad scientific expertise in the chosen discipline and also extensive mentoring experience. Future development of the program is also served by MUSC fiscal support and the creation of new and renovated space that will permit additional faculty recruitments with complementary expertise

Public Health Relevance

Biological changes induced by oxidative stress are associated with numerous human pathologies. By studying how such stresses impact cells through macromolecular damage and signaling pathways will be important in understanding the etiology and therapeutic approaches to diseases such as cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular disorders as well as pathologies linked with aging.